Canadian killer in Washington State jail sues victim’s wife over transfer bid

Convicted killer Larry Shandola is suing the murder victim's family.

Photograph by: Handout /Postmedia News
, Postmedia News

A Canadian man serving a 31-year sentence for an “execution-style” murder in the U.S. has sued his victim’s widow after she effectively blocked the inmate’s bid to be transferred from a Washington State jail to a prison in Canada.

The lawsuit, filed in December by convicted killer Larry Shandola, has been described as not only legally “frivolous” but also as a ploy to harass and torment the grieving woman, Paula Henry.

The case has prompted calls from her lawyer, John Ladenburg — and from two state legislators in Washington — to curb prisoners’ rights to launch such lawsuits from behind bars.

“(Shandola) had somebody track her down, and had papers served on her at her apartment, and she called me that night – terrified and crying – saying that friends were coming over, and that she’s moving out right away,” Ladenburg told Postmedia News. “She couldn’t stand the thought that he might know where she lives – that he might be able to find her, or that his friends on the outside might be able to find her.”

Ladenburg is headed to court on Friday in Tacoma, Wash., to try to have the lawsuit dismissed.

“People incarcerated often file frivolous lawsuits, but they’re normally attempts to get out. I’ve never seen this,” said the lawyer.

“We’re asking not only for the court to throw this out,” he added, “but we’re also asking the (state) legislature to create a new law here that says anybody convicted of a violent crime – like murder, rape, armed robbery – cannot sue anybody involved in the case without the permission of the presiding judge.”

Robert Henry, a 33-year-old businessman in Tacoma, was murdered on Sept. 11, 1995 in the parking lot of the electrical company where he worked.

The trial was told the windshield of Henry’s car had been blasted by an unidentified man wearing a black ski mask, who then approached the car and pointed his shotgun directly at Henry’s head, brazenly pulling the trigger in front of several witnesses. The shooter ran to a black motorcycle parked nearby and fled the scene.

Shandola’s arrest in January 2001 came after five years of unrelenting effort by Paula Henry, who raised $50,000 to help keep the investigation alive and pushed police to probe Shandola — Robert Henry’s former friend and business partner — as the prime suspect.

She also claimed to have been stalked by Shandola in the years following her husband’s murder.

“She’s been trying to move on for almost 20 years,” said Ladenburg. “Paula’s dedicated herself to changing the law so this doesn’t happen to another victim.”

The two men had fallen out over financial dealings and a subsequent lawsuit that Henry filed against Shandola as a result of a fist fight between them at a New Year’s Eve party in 1993.

Shandola pleaded guilty to an assault charge after the altercation, but Henry also sued his former friend for medical expenses and dental work, winning a summary judgment on Sept. 1, 1995 — nine days before the fatal parking-lot shooting.

Tacoma police detective Bob Yerbury finally unlocked the murder case when, in 1998, a shotgun was found dumped in bushes near the place where Henry had been killed. The gun was eventually traced through a series of former owners to Shandola, who had purchased the weapon at a firearms show shortly before Henry’s death.

Throughout his trial, Shandola denied killing Henry and claimed that the two had patched up their differences. But there were many unexplained contradictions in his testimony, and Shandola was convicted of first-degree murder and, in September 2001, sentenced to a prison term of 31 years and eight months.

In 2011, after more than a decade in Washington’s prison system, Shandola renewed an earlier application to the state’s department of corrections to serve the remainder of his jail time — nearly 20 years — in his native Canada.

Neither the police nor prosecutor’s office in Washington’s Pierce County — where the 1995 killing of Henry and Shandola’s 2001 arrest took place — could immediately identify where in Canada the convict had lived before moving to the U.S.

According to the lawsuit filed in December, the 62-year-old Shandola blamed Paula Henry’s “highly offensive” letter to the state corrections department for helping to scuttle his application to transfer to a Canadian prison.

Shandola’s statement of claim highlights Henry’s “false” assertions about the Canadian prisoner that, “I know he will kill me,” “He is a skilled sociopath,” and “He stalked me and tried to intimidate me for five years.”

Shandola claims in the suit that Henry’s statements amounted to “highly objectionable publicity that attributed to him characteristics, conduct and/or beliefs that are false.”

Furthermore, the lawsuit claims, Henry’s letter objecting to the transfer “constitutes invasion of privacy by placing plaintiff in a false light.”

Shandola’s statement of claim repeats his longstanding contention that he is “innocent of the murder of Robert Henry” and that he was “remorseful for having inadvertently harmed his friend” during the 1993 fist fight.

Shandola is seeking $100,000 in damages from Paula Henry, plus the same amount from three other witnesses named in the lawsuit — including a victims-of-crime advocate — who had also objected to the prisoner’s proposed transfer to Canada.

“They are now defending themselves against this frivolous lawsuit, and spending a lot of money on attorneys’ fees and costs,” said Ladenburg. “And I imagine if we get it dismissed, he’ll appeal — so we’ll still be doing this for a while.”

He added: “In some way, he already has been successful, because he’s harassed Paula to the point where she had to move out of her apartment.”

New rules limiting lawsuits by prisoners would mean that “legitimate claims would still go forward, but we could stop the illegitimate ones without having to have victims and their families spend thousands of dollars defending themselves in frivolous lawsuits,” said Ladenburg.

While Henry’s lawyer doesn’t expect Shandola’s lawsuit to get very far in court, “what do you do with a judgment against a guy serving 31 years? He wins by costing her money.”

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